CERT: Make a Difference in this World...

Since the beginning of time, weather has been unpredictable. So has man.

When was the last time you witnessed the aftermath of a natural disaster?

When was the last time you saw the devastation from the Fateh-110 family of short-range ballistic weapons?

The continuous examples of risks to our world could generally be put into two major categories, 1) those we as humans can control and 2) those natural risks that we can’t control and shall have to live with.

Our spectrum of "Operational Risks" across People, Processes, Systems and External Events is vast and endless.

Where do you as a leader in your organization spend most or your time and resources to try and mitigate risks:

• Natural Disasters and Weather (External Events)
• People and Processes

Why?

Do you think that you are able to make a difference with those risks that you might be able to control?

Which is it - A) controlling the weather or B) influencing human behavior. Pick one.

What might happen if we devoted more time and resources to “B”.

How might this investment have a risk reduction impact and reduction in annual loss events to your family, organization, community, college or government?

Complacency or ignorance will continue to plague us and will make the world a more dangerous place to work and live.

Just listen to your own local news for a day. What will you learn?

Now, learn what you might do to make proactive difference.

This is one great place to begin: Community Emergency Response Team CERT.

Similar to the Community concept, why not apply this just cause of continuous training and learning to a Corporation, a Church, a Synagogue, a Campus, a Club or a Cinema.

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.” Albert Einstein

OPS Risk: 7 Revolutions on our Horizon…

The holiday season is almost upon us. One only has to look into the mirror of 2022 to see the trajectory of our world.

Our digital globe is preparing itself for the next major breakpoint in its history of commerce and business.

Our organizations are in anarchy and the consumers of our products and services are shifting before our eyes.

You only have to look back on the past years major headlines of the Washington Post to gain some perspective on where we are headed in the next 12 months.

Social consciousness is seeping into the workplace and management is keenly aware of the accelerating change factors on the corporate doorstep for 2023-24.

Several new waves of incremental change are upon us. As providers of products and services to the consumers of the planet, whether businesses or individuals, the writing is on the walls of the corporate boardroom: Survive.

The tides of change are now upon us. Look no further than the Seven Revolutions Initiative. [See 7 Revs] The social, technological and demographic facets are enough to make anyone wonder where we are all headed in the next 20 years.

Our Critical Infrastructure industries are putting the building blocks in place to sustain a dramatic shift in who their customers are today and whom they will be tomorrow.

2023 will be another year of corporate malfeasance, seeded with wondrous accounts of incivility. Spawned by the empowered employee to become a whistle blower and a bold new generation of inside crime fighters.

Our generations of young workers and consumers on this planet will pay for something they can believe in, rather than something that is socially and morally bankrupt.

They will work all day in the global banking software development department and work late into the night, developing the next binary code to impress their peers on the other side of the world developing the latest ransomware on the Internet.

They will design the new marketing campaign for the next gas guzzling 4-wheel drive SUV by day and ride home that same evening in their brand new foreign hybrid using electric power.

2023 will be a year of heightened sensitivity to security and exponential asymmetric warfare.

Our dated processes and systems will be adjusted and tweaked to accommodate the planets morphing threats by a new force of true “Innovation Navigators.”

The Board Room Buzz will be more about how to protect those vital corporate assets and simultaneously how to survive our next crisis.

What may be most interesting, is how the governments of the world now cooperate to become more of a global partner on this front.

We sense already a growing cooperation among world leaders to deter and defend our citizens from the spread of a tyrants fear and uncertainty.

Finally, 2023 will be another year we find greater appreciation for:

• The evening glimmer of sunlight across a body of clean water. The wave from the neighbor who lives next door or across the street.
• Our faith in what or whomever we believe in. Those who serve, so we can remain free of threats or illness, to our loved ones and our own well-being.
• The signs that our bodies are healthy. The hope that exists in all of us, for finding a greater peace of mind.

In 2023 and beyond, look with fresh eyes on everyday things…

Complacency: Zeros & Ones of Safety...

How might you increase your own resilience to known potential risks in your business operations or even personally this week, or this month?

We all know that growing up, Mom and Dad would teach us, “Don’t talk to strangers”. “Don’t play with matches”. “Wear your seat belt”. Why?

Even a U.S. President is famous for his quote: “Trust But Verify”.

Our life long history of financial transactions and your own personal biometric identity, has made its way online and into the Zeros and Ones digital realms of the U.S. government, Google, Amazon, Apple, Nordstroms and even Netflix.

The single phone number and the e-mail address you have retained for a decade or more, tells almost your entire life story. Where, What, When. How.

In the years past, as you were experiencing all the new mobile technologies and digital services available to you, remember that so too, are the “Nation States” and the “International Criminal Syndicates.

You, the “Human Being” operator, are the single greatest risk to your business and your family safety.

Is it possible that your own personality traits are being exploited by commercial enterprises? Yes.

Is it conceivable that every time you provide a phone number at your retail check out stand to gain rewards, that this contributes to your profiling by Artificial Intelligence (Ai) algorithms with Data Brokers? Yes.

Your business organizations safety and your own families potential vulnerabilities to a spectrum of Operational Risks, are continuously at stake.

When will you make a commitment to change your behavior and to build a discipline that endures and increases your resilience at work and at home?

So what?

If you as a Mother or Father, or Brother or Sister have ever said, “You can’t have a phone until you are 13,” then you have a personal and vital life opportunity before you.

If our own society that is visible in our own cities and geography, has evidence of rising risk and lower levels of personal safety, you might think of our vast searchable World Wide Web as just the top of the “Iceberg”. 

However, 90% as you may know, is below the surface and not visible, also known as the “Dark Web”.

"Yet most average users of corporate business networks have little insight into the growing losses from ransomware. A review of 2021 8-K filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reveals a more complete picture of the financial damage from ransomware." CSO Online by Cynthia Brumfield

It all begins with a click in an e-mail or text message, from those behind the curtain, or below the surface, utilizing their “Social Engineering” processes across millions of users profiles, purchased somewhere on the Dark Web.

Personal Profiles built and donated as a result of your own activities and actions. Why do you think that the “Digital Forensics” industry is booming?

So what is the solution? How can the growing threat ever be minimized?

It begins here. Less complacent attitudes and behavior in the Board Room and the Family Room is our only hope. It is our only proactive solution towards true resilience.

Just Remember. Don’t play with matches or digital unknowns. Teach someone else the same...

Innovation: The Speed of Exploration...

Why does your organization encounter Operational Risk events that have caught you off balance, off guard or created substantial losses to shareholders and major stakeholders?

There are people in your organization right now that are still without the tools, the training or the methodology to solve new significant problem-sets.

More vital, is that your organization is not proactively generating new innovative ideas, new solutions and new answers to your own operational risk issues.

innovation - noun

in· no· va· tion | \ ˌi-nə-ˈvā-shən

Definition of innovation

1: a new idea, method, or device : novelty

2: the introduction of something new

To truly innovate a new product/solution, you must first do your research. Your field study. You must get out of the building and ride in the field.

Show up on the front lines of your business unannounced. This is nothing new, yet it works and it is amazing on what you will learn.

You have the awareness of why this method of discovery is the basis for better understanding the problem-set(s).

So why as the leader in your small business or Fortune 500 Global enterprise do you ignore or delegate the true innovation mechanisms in your company to just a few people.

Why have you loss sight of the mandatory Recruiting, Education, Networking and Sharing metrics by your front line teams?

Discovering, researching, prototyping, practicing, refining your methodology to more rapidly respond to threats, to your competition, to possible opportunities.

You see, you and your organization have become complacent. You have not changed your onboarding experience of new employees or new customers in over a decade.

Why is it true, that most people and organizations don’t focus on innovation and new solutions to a problem, until there is a significant loss event.

An incident that hits the local headlines. A risk event so damaging to the bottom line it could mean closing the business forever.

How might you design the methodology and the system in your enterprise to have continuous problem and threat monitoring, new innovation?

It begins with the right people working on the initial prototype together with the correct tools. It means getting senior management on board with facilitating the process to insure the prototypes are tested in the field or Area of Responsibility (AOR).

Next, those individuals who are in charge, in command, at the field level must have the resources and the authority to test, to learn and to gather new data continuously.

Your organization is slowly decaying right before your eyes. Your adversaries are winning.

It has lost its initial purpose because you have not been continuously innovating on the front lines. In the geography and in the organizations of your own neighborhood.

The next time someone in your organization sends you or presents to you a Powerpoint funding proposal with more than 5 pages, with more than 4 bullets on each page without any true graphical data, you know you have to engage.

Filling in the standard forms in your CRM or your word.docx template on a monthly basis might be OK, if it calls for truth and relevant data from the front lines, yet is it focused on the real problem-sets?

How might you and your team change the way you are working on the front lines of your organization? Soon.

Why will you engage differently, before it is too late. What is the Speed of your Exploration?